Megavalanche 2013 - Downhill mountain biking race open to all

It can be a long, hard summer for ski-enthusiasts, spending April to November with both feet sadly horizontal.

The MEGAVALANCHE is France's answer to the ski summer blues - a death-defying downhill mountain bike race in Vaujany from the 8th to the 15th of July 2013.

The course is 35km long with 3000m of vertical descent. The race starts in the clouds; Riders begin 3200m high on the snowy peak of alpine glacier Pic Blanc and fight to win the lead before they hit the singletrack course waiting below. The track is famous for testing technical riding, teasing out the skills and moves you'd never dare to do, given an easier option.

It's hard but it's fair - riders from many different backgrounds are all welcome to give it a crack, riding the same line on equal terms whilst testing their own limits. There'll be tough, worn gents challenging their athletic power and capacities for endurance while MEGAKIDS lets the younger entrants show off the technical abilities that they seem to have picked up in the womb. The Megavalanche is unclassifiable - it's a cross-country, down-hill, black run, for fun and for fear - and so, its contestants can be anyone at all. Like the modern moutain biker, they can be men and women, elder and younger, all they need is metaphorical balls and a bike.

BEST OF MEGAVALANCHE 2013

If you're going to see the Tour de France and can get that extra week of work, you can sneak a peak and taste the track of the Megavalanche first. Chalet Solneige in Vaujany (location pictured below) has been snapped up for the Tour but is still availabe for the Megavalanche week - check out their website for the luxury accomodation you deserve after a stylish freefall down the Megavalanche course.